BB - you are right and ALL emitters need to do something about...

BB - you are right and ALL emitters need to do something about it (including us). The [er capita argument certainly does not absolve China. my point was more that they are doing something about it (and so are we) - their main issue is that they are expanding their economy at a rate which has pulled many out of poverty and made advancements that would make our (and other developed countries) eyes water - if we could advance at their rate of progress (and also constrain the Sewie's of the world for holding up progress on what is a real threat) the world would be in a far better position. Unfortunately it's the India's of the world who do the least but promote the population argument most' it's a bit like we are all lobsters in a pot of warming water but all pointing at each other whilst we stew). India strongly promotes the argument that western countries have made "historic" emissions and thus we should pay "reparations" for them. What they don't consider (like our aboriginal friends also) that:

1. The reason they have "modern conveniences" (e.g running water, electricity etc) is due to western progress - us Pomms also built their railway, roadsand ports (the Chinese did most of this themselves)
2. CO2 (and more so CH4) have a half life in the atmosphere - most of those "historic emissions" will now be sequestered in the sea and carbonate rocks
3 That the likes of Sewie cannot (or will not) understand that uranium/thorium ore have been in ore bodies underground for 4.5Bn years and in that state are completely unprotected and leaching their "radio-activity" into the water table (as water soluble radium) and radon gas decaying into ²¹⁸Polonium (the Russian used this to kill their errant spy in London). What they do not appear to understand is that removing radio active ores from the ground we are REDUCING unprotected radio-active waste and that when spent fuel is sequestered it is done on a very responsible manner and that within about 400 year that spent waste is back down to about natural (uranium/thorium) level and protected in glass, in casks, covered in Kaolin, locked in a safe and located 300m below ground - IMO if anyone goes down 300m - gets into this waste material after millennia, grinds it up and eats it they deserve all they get.

On the need for climate abatement - my argument was more that we need to do our bit but that the world's worst absolute emitter (China) has made much more progress than anyone else - IMO their efforts to should be admired but their problem has been pulling their nation out of poverty with progress that should make us salivate. China has also managed to reduce their population (India/other SE Asian countries haven't) - IMO population is the underlying cause of much of the world's emissions but nevertheless we need to do our bit (our population has also expanded)